Head-to-Head: Working to lower book prices
Instructors should use required textbooks
By Greta Lieske
IV Leader Staff
Every semester most full-time students will eventually throw
down a couple hundred dollars for their textbooks, and the money is completely
gone, just like that.
Purchasing used books can lower this high price, but, as most
know, sometimes we don’t have that luxury. On average, when I enroll in five
classes a semester, there are at least three classes which require either new
textbooks that the bookstore has to order, or they are bundled with a workbook
or CD, which bounces the price up.
I completely understand that IVCC is not the only community
college, or college for that matter, that has high prices for textbooks. And in
all actuality, there is not much that IVCC administrators can do to soften the
problem.
Unfortunately, high textbook prices are just something that
every student has to deal with and somehow pay for. So I, like most students,
just suck it up and hand over my hard earned money for my textbooks.
There is one issue with textbooks, however, that needs to be
fixed and happens a lot more than most people realize.
Time after time, I have spent countless dollars on a textbook only to discover
during the semester that my instructor doesn’t refer to the book or require any
work or readings from it.
I keep waiting throughout the semester, wondering when that
infamous textbook will come in handy. I think to myself…“I will have to read
some chapters soon, I’m sure of it” or “I’m sure I will have to use it to study
for a test sooner or later,” but that moment never comes.
If a teacher knows that their students don’t need to buy a
textbook for their class, then why make us waste money to buy one?
If all of the information in the class is going to be from lectures and
handouts, why did I just shell out endless amounts of cash that I won’t see
again?
Instructors should decide before the semester begins if a
book will be required for the class, and if it isn’t…please, don’t make us buy
one just for the sake of having it.
I really don’t need to buy anymore books that just sit in my
computer room gathering dust until book buyback week. It is pointless and just
wastes my precious money.
Head to Head: Bookstore works to keep prices as low as possible